


Proof of Love

by etal



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 10:46:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7529704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etal/pseuds/etal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'... he loves as a man, requiring proof of love in return.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proof of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this way way back in 2003, in the yahoo group dir_slash, under the name rosemaryrus. Firedrake beta'd for me and it was lovely to find other Merriman/Hawkin shippers. Anyway, dusting it down and archiving it now.

Now, Merriman reminds himself, is a matter of choice. Now, he is looking into the dead face of an old man. Now, he is talking to Will, soothing him. He can feel the damp of the earth, here and now, beneath his knees. In these moments of stillness, the network of memories and events to come is dazzlingly clear, like raindrops strung across a spider’s web.

An Old One can see out of every second of their lives into that web of time - except for those rare moments in which they are acting blindly. At these times the mind will be full of distractions and those distractions will obscure the causes and the consequences which connect that which has been and that which will come.

Merriman’s blind spots, his unseeing moments, were always those where the glint of Hawkin stole his attention. When he sees the Walker crumple, he is sharply aware of all those past glittering moments which clouded his true vision; moments which extend and layer across the ages, until they fold into each other - collapsing time into nothingness.

He remembers, and feels again, the long minutes when he and Will watched together at the Manor party. He remembers Will’s startled attraction to Hawkin, and is immediately there, sensing the way Will responds to the gleam of Hawkin’s presence across the room. Merriman sees the images Will gropes for to explain his fascination and he isn’t sure whether the pictures emerge from his own mind or Will’s. A precious stone, Will is thinking. And yes, Hawkin *is* like a gemstone, Merriman thinks; my precious pearl without a price, and hard as a diamond. Hawkin always understood the world in terms of bargains, even as a lad.

Merriman watches Hawkin turning to hear the witch-girl’s sly whisper. In that moment, the snarling face of the Walker is already superimposed on Hawkin’s merry smile, his canary colours, bright in the candle-light, fade into the Walker’s dirt-brown and grey rags.

And he sees again the moment when Hawkin falls back from his touch in the Library of the Manor, his trusting smile twisting into a grimace of fear. He hears Hawkin’s shocked words as he helped him from the room, still at that point more incredulous and bewildered than angry: “I fell. It _threw_ me… or did _you_  throw me down? I don’t remember how I fell…”

Merriman’s blindness had bound their fates together in the condition that to retrieve Gramarye, he must be touching Hawkin, that he must be _touching_  him. Merriman had spoken the binding words with a smile on his lips, because he was half-undone with love. It was a joke on himself, a reminder of a game they played, and a whisper in the dark:

“Come to me now, boy.”

“You must catch me first, old man!”

“I will always find you. I will always gather you home to my hand, my Hawk.”

Merriman tastes that laughter again as he gazes at the broken body before him and hears its echo in all the other connected moments across the web, when the world had seemed to recede just enough to allow Hawkin to fill the space it left. Later, he mocks himself when he hears his stern school-master’s voice telling Will that there will be times when he will wish he were just an ordinary boy. As if part of Merriman himself did not always live in the moments when he had longed to be other than he was.

He had wished it in the moment he first took Hawkin into his arms, murmuring, “my Hawkin, my liege-man.” He had trembled, but Hawkin was quite calm, quite natural. Hawkin had bent his forehead to Merriman’s broad chest, butted him playfully, “Master?”, he had said, easily, lightly. That was Hawkin’s gift, lightness. No great power to work against the Dark, but simple, earthly light: the easy and uncomplicated light of spring mornings and lanterns at twilight, the light of dancing feet and jewel-coloured clothes and games between friends.

He had wished it in the unguarded moment when Hawkin twined himself around his body, like ivy round an oak tree, and whispered, “Show me, Master, show me secrets,” and he had answered, “Anything.”

And he had wished it in the shattering moment when he had first tasted a  connection to the world so unlike the deep rhythms proper to the Old Ones. They had ridden through an autumn dusk of falling leaves and the smell of wood smoke to a hunting lodge deep in the forest. Hawkin had teased him all through the long night until he had coaxed Merriman over his objections and disavowals and had drawn his body on with caresses and pleas. Eventually, Merriman had moved into him, slowly at first, but then with a gathering violence until he had the feeling that his whole self had become this moment of pleasure, and even then, he had not seen anything to fear. Hawkin moving beneath him, his warm hands skating Merriman’s shoulders and then fluttering over his own face, until Merriman had caught and pinned his wrists so that he could study Hawkin’s mobile expressions, watch him bite his lips and catch the little whispers of “Master…’ slipping between them.

It was that weightlessness, the feeling of being connected to something so light on the earth, which drew Merriman to Hawkin so completely. In the moments when he could forget himself in Hawkin’s kisses and riddles, Merriman felt the heaviness of the Old Ones as a burden. Hawkin’s tawny hair and eyes, his comical face, even his occasional petulance, all spoke of a changeability and a simplicity that was loveable in itself

He had chosen to disregard the necessary space which lay between them. And so, with absolute inevitability, those moments of delicious forgetfulness had led directly to the self-centred blaze of misapprehension in which Hawkin accused his liege Lord of holding him worthless. He had spoken in confusion, trembling there in the Library of the Manor, already slipping into the pitiful tone which would later become the Walker’s only real voice.

“You thought you were giving me a gift I suppose, as you would give me a new coat? You thought I should be grateful for death because it was at an Old One’s request?”

Merriman could find no way to explain that the bond he had created to protect the Book had required as surety a life that he had the power to sacrifice. He had not named Hawkin as a *favour*, but simply because there was nothing in the world he longed to keep by him as he longed to keep Hawkin by him, no person that he longed to touch as he longed to touch Hawkin. In that weakness was the strength which would protect the Light. He was Hawkin’s, and Hawkin was his, his to give away if the need arose.

But Hawkin could not understand this kind of bargain. To Merriman, the logic was inevitable, unquestionable in the order of things. And his love for Hawkin withered a little in the face of his refusal to understand his place in that order.

He had spoken coldly. He had flinched when Hawkin approached him, seeking the reward that was his to expect before he had sold himself to colder comforts.

“ _You_ threw me down!”

“It was our agreement. You understood the bargain.”

“There are other, kinder masters for me! Masters who will offer me more than death in exchange for the gifts I bring!”

 “They will destroy you.”

 “And you wouldn’t, in the blink of an eye?”

 “You were my liege-man, my Hawk—”

 “Hawk brought to hand! Hound brought to heel!”

 “You chose. It was always your way to choose. And you have made your choice. You return to your own time now, by my command.”

 “We are returning?”

 “ _You_ are returning. And I will no longer know you in that time. My Hall is closed to you.”

 Hawkin had been defiant, even if he was to be thrown back into his own time; he had believed his new masters would show him favour there.

“But I have one last errand for you.”

Merriman watched as resentment and self-pity battled in Hawkin’s face.

“You said I was no longer in your service.”

“There’s gold for your work.”

Merriman drew out a small leather bag which he tossed at Hawkin’s feet and then had to turn his back, he couldn’t bear to see the light of greed in Hawkin’s eyes as he stooped eagerly to catch his treasure. He blocked out Hawkin’s thoughts, full of mean ambitions and pointless desires.

“What is my errand, Master?” The title was spoken with a sneer. It hardened Merriman’s heart, and strengthened him to turn back to face his servant.

“I wish you to deliver something for me. You must seek out its owner and put it into his hands alone. He will be expecting it, when the time comes.”

He held out the small package, wrapped in green velvet. “Here. Do you agree to carry out this task?”

“I do.” Hawkin grabbed the package from Merriman’s palm. Immediately, the expression of crafty glee faded from his face. He whispered, “But it is so heavy.”

Merriman watched as Hawkin carefully lifted the folds of velvet to look at his new travelling companion. As the shape of the Sign was revealed and Hawkin’s breath caught in an anguished gasp of horror, Merriman raised his hand to begin the incantation before his will to carry through this punishment deserted him.

In those few seconds before he faded back into his own time, Hawkin already began to shrink and cower, the dancing energy left his limbs, the characterful lines of his face twisting into scars of loathing and terror.

“You would not fly back to my hand when I called you, so now you will crawl through time. You are Hawkin no longer. They will know you as Walker.”

As Merriman spoke the final words, Hawkin took one step forward and lifted his hands beseechingly.

“Master, I beg…”

But time took him before he could finish.

Now, Merriman turns the body on the ground, places the wasted arms carefully over his chest. So small, so light! The words he is speaking to Will in this time catch in his throat, but below them he is thinking that when he first held Hawkin in his arms, he had seemed as light as this.

Pearl. Jewel. Hawk. Friend.

Next to him, he feels Will trying to comprehend what had passed between them in the last moments. Will is still enough of a small boy to find these feelings unfathomable. But he’ll understand soon, Merriman thinks, and looks along the string of suspended moments to see another pair of friends bound together in this long fight. Another bright, slight boy marooned out of his own time, who reflects the Light with his own softer, mortal light. He hopes Will’s friend is luckier than his poor Hawk.

There will be dark or there will be light, and Merriman will never give up the fight to keep the Dark at bay. He and Will can force the Dark back and with their combined strength fill the world with Light forever. But there will always be a part of him in *this* moment, with all the lost Hawkins he hated and loves and will long for forever, gazing out of history and into his eyes.

 


End file.
